Marlena eased down into the chair beside John’s bed. Sean and Caroline had taken the children home with them, and for the first time since John had appeared at her door she wasn’t running, getting shot at, patching wounds or trying to explain things that made no sense. The ghost of a smile crossed her lips and she recognized herself slipping into ‘shrink mode’, as Roman- no, as John- had always called it. Lord! No wonder she was so confused.

Too much history, too many memories. The man in the bed was the man she had been married to for the past decade and a half. He was the one she had planned to grow old with. Roman, the real Roman, had been a part of her life for less than 2 years. They had been great years, but they had been so long ago.





Ruefully, she reached out and took his hand in her own. “I know you can hear me, John. I saw the way your skin flushed when I checked your pulse. I would have thought Dimera’s soldier a much better liar than that.”

Slowly, his eye cracked open. “First time you’ve called me John,” he said, his voice a whisper.

“No it’s not,” she replied, tightening her grip on his hand as he tried to pull away. “When I first met you, you told me your name was John. Remember? Apparently, it was one of the few times you weren’t lying to me.”

“Did you drag me off the plane just so you could yell at me?”

“Are you suggesting I don’t have the right?” She quirked a brow and waited for him to deny it.

“No- shit, you have every right. God! You know how much I hate arguing with you. Marlena, you should have left me on the plane. I’d be halfway home to Stefano by now. You wouldn’t even have to be looking at my damn face, much less wasting your time telling me what an asshole I am. Believe me, I already know.”

“If you had tried to fly that plane, you would have died! You came close enough as it was. Besides, I’m more than happy to spare the time to explain the ways in which you are an asshole.”


His dry chuckle tore at his chest, but he couldn’t help a smile. “You’re the toughest person I’ve ever known and we both know things would be better if you had let me leave.”

“You aren’t going back to him,” Marlena said firmly. “You are going to stay here and you are going to make this right. You can start by figuring out what to tell the children.”





Tiredly, he turned his head, forced himself to meet her eyes. “I can’t make this right, Marlena. You don’t know me. You don’t want to know me. The sooner I’m gone, the better off you will be.”

It was her turn to pull away and he wasn’t strong enough to stop her. Crossing her arms in front of her chest, she tried to pretend he couldn’t hurt her. “You helped us escape from the compound. That had to mean something.”

His eyelid drooped closed, the effort of being awake too much for him to maintain. She had to leave. She had to let him go. She had no idea… “Just a chance to piss Stefano off, that’s all it was. Fucker left me here for fourteen damn years, he deserved a little payback. It’s time for me to go home, rub his face in it a little. Time for you to go home too.”

He let himself fade away, unwilling to see how his words would hurt her. He never felt it as her fingers again curled around his own.

“You really are a terrible liar,” she whispered. Leaning back in her chair, she watched him sleep and wondered what to tell their children.

Peering through the small window in the hospital door, Roman watched as his wife held the hand of the man who had stolen his life. Damn it, he would not let him get away with this. Roman had just gotten off of the phone with Jameson, his controller from his days with the ISA and now an assistant director at the agency. While he had been very interested to find out that John Black had surfaced, he had also informed Roman that there were no warrants out for the man. They had a dossier on Black going back to his teens, but he had always been a bit too good for them to get anything that would hold up in court.

Roman already knew that nothing that had happened on the island would put John away. In the first place, it was outside of U.S. jurisdiction. In the second place, Roman thought grimly, Marlena wouldn’t testify to anything that would see him locked up. Concealing his frustration, Roman pushed the door open and went to join his wife.

“Hey,” he called to her quietly.

Almost guiltily, Marlena released John’s hand and turned to smile up at him. “Hey yourself. Are you okay?”

Moving to her side, he laid a hand on her shoulder and looked down at the body of the man in the bed. “Yea, I’m fine. Sorry I was so abrupt with you. This is all just a little hard for me to take. I just, I missed you so much for so many years. This isn’t how I saw my homecoming.”

“I know,” she said sadly. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Marlena, I love you so much. I missed you and I just want this to be done with. I want us to be together again.” Looking down at her face, he almost missed the glint of light from John’s nearly closed eye. Masking his recognition, he pulled Marlena up into a quick hug. “Look, you must be exhausted. He’s not going anywhere. I’ll sit with him. Why don’t you try and get some rest? Mike said we can use the empty room next door.”

Marlena looked uncertain, but Roman placed a hand beneath her elbow and edged her toward the door. “Come on. Sleep will do you good. Tomorrow looks to be a long day and you’ve been through a lot.”

Laughing at the understatement, she allowed Roman to lead her out of the room.

Marlena safely tucked away in the bed Mike had made available, Roman eased back into John’s room. “I know you’re awake, you bastard. Stop pretending.”

A low chuckle came from the unmoving figure in the bed. “I thought you caught that,” John said weakly. “I’m glad you came back.”

“I didn’t do it as a favor to you. I just don’t want you anywhere near Marlena, or anyone else in my family for that matter.”

“At least we’re in agreement. While we’re on the topic, there is something I need you to do,” John said.

“Unless it’s a request for assisted suicide, I wouldn’t count on any help from me- but I admire the gall it took to ask,” Roman replied.

“Oh, I think you’ll be glad to help me, Roman. I need to get back to Dimera and I can’t do it alone.”

Roman just stared at him blankly for a moment. “Call a cab.”

“Don’t be stupider than usual. You want me gone more than I want to go. Drop the act, Brady.”

“I don’t want you gone, John. I want you dead,” Roman hissed, glad of the chance to say what he felt.

John merely chuckled, deliberately pushing the man’s buttons. He was going to make Roman help him or kill him, and at the moment, he wasn’t sure which it would be. “Do you really want me here, Roman? You know I still dream about her, don’t you? I dream about how we used to make love and I think maybe, just maybe, I can have that again. Roman, if I stay, I’ll destroy her. You’re not doing me any favors by helping me leave- you’re doing her a favor.”

Roman stared down at the pale figure in the bed, his hands balling into tight fists. This man had already stolen so much of his life, he would not allow him to take any more. Roman didn’t want John Black to ever so much as see Marlena again. “Tell me what I need to do.”

At 11:45 the night shift desk-nurse started her rounds. As she disappeared up the hallway, the door to John’s private room slowly cracked open. Seconds later, the bundled form of John Black was wheeled toward the service elevator. The doors closed and he looked up at Roman’s grim face. “You contacted the number I gave you? The men are waiting in the parking structure?”

“Yea, John. I called D-Bar Enterprises and gave them the codewords. They said they’d have a man waiting,” Roman replied shortly, wanting only to get this over with.

The elevator lurched as they came to a stop, John muffling a harsh grunt of pain.

“You think that hurt, you try coming back to Salem, John. I don’t ever want to see you in this town again,” Roman snarled as he pushed the wheelchair down the loading dock.

“The feelings mutual,” John muttered, concentrating on staying conscious.

As they reached the curb, a black Mercedes glided to a halt beside them, a silver haired man in an impeccably tailored suit emerging from the back. “John Black?” he asked, looking expectantly at the man in the chair. “Mr. Dimera is very eager to see you.”

“I’ll bet,” John replied, as two goons appeared at his sides, lifting him from the chair. He twisted in their grip and felt stitches start to give. Planting his feet, he managed a quick look back at Roman. “You better take care of her,” he stated, his words a warning.

“Sir, you need to get in the car, we have to meet the jet in less than 20 minutes.”

With a silent nod of acceptance, John Black disappeared into the night.

High in the mountains of Europe, a servant walked noiselessly through granite halls. Rapping lightly on the double doors to the library, he awaited permission to enter. Dreading delivering the news to his master, he half hoped that his knock would go unacknowledged.

“Come,” a gruff voice ordered.

The library soared a full 3 stories, dominated on one end by a marble fireplace surrounded by stained-glass windows depicting the family history. Hesitantly, the servant approached the lord of the manor, lounging at ease behind a solid oak desk. The man’s looks belied his age. At 48, his massive body was still toned and firm. His 6’3 frame easily carrying in excess of 220 pounds, the man was built like a bear. The analogy was enhanced by the long black hair he wore pulled back, knotted with a leather band. He was dressed casually, but expensively. Fine wool trousers, in the black he always tended to favor, encased long legs. Dark chest hair, shot through with grey, peeked from the neck of his silk shirt. On the middle finger of his right hand, the only piece of jewelry he wore glinted in the early morning light. The family crest, a gryphon rampant on a field of emerald green, was depicted in heavy gold, a sign of his sovereignty.

“Well, Ivan? What is it? You know I hate to be disturbed when I’m working,” the man snapped irritably.

“Sir, I’m sorry sir. A message just came in that I thought you would want to be made aware of immediately. One of our contacts in the ISA. It seems that John Black has finally resurfaced. Apparently he wasn’t dead, as we had initially surmised. He’s back and still a member of the Dimera cartel.”

“Damn it!” the man behind the desk swore. He slammed a hand against the dark wood, the sound ringing out like a rifle shot. “I felt that he was still alive. He wouldn’t die that easily- I should know. Get in touch with our contact. I want a sample of his DNA sent here immediately. Ivan, I want that sample yesterday. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir. I will see to it.” Relieved at being able to escape the man’s presence, Ivan scurried quickly to the door.

As the doors swung shut behind the frightened servant, Mikovitch Alamain leaned back in his chair. He looked up at the portrait of his father and smiled. “It’s time we find out for certain if you are still out there, little brother.”

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